On her way home, Sakurazuka Setsuka is brimming with fury as she realized just how stupid a decision of her to ever attend a homecoming. Her long hair falls and danced this way, that way over the back of her black blazer and her long, dark purple pants as she grumpily accelerate her steps on a pair of bright red stiletto. She even managed to still shaking her petit head now and again while not stopping at cursing under her breath at the same time as she drags two large plastic bags filled with groceries from the apartment building' hall into her condo.
Her worn out leather handbag were left unattended behind the slightly opened door. Fortunately though, she still got the strength to smile back at her neighbour while taking that handbag with only her right arm and head out the door. "Good evening, Sakurazuka-san," Fujiwara Taka said sweetly. Setsuka simply kept her smile and nods her greetings at him.
To hell with manners, she still got a problematic son to face. Thus, upon seeing her only son still sprawling over their black leather sofa, wearing a black sweater and dark blue track pants he'd wore since yesterday; Setsuka didn't hesitate to throw her flailing, tired arms up in the air and lands it on Seishirou's back as hard as possible.
"Ah... welcome home, Mom."
Setsuka smiled, although more sinister than the one she have sent Fujiwara Taka with.
"I'm curious, Son," she began, her cheeks flushed with anger as she took her stilettos off her feet and throws it far behind her. One of those expensive shoes hit the front door with a loud thud. "What have you been doing all the time I'm away, huh?"
"Trying to sleep," Seishirou answered wearily, he could hear his mother echoing his words. He scratched the back of his head, amber eyes squinting under his mother's glare. He heard a sigh coming from his mother and anticipates the inevitable; "Just go with your uncle, will you?" now Seishirou's the one mockingly echoing his mother's words.
He chuckled even while receiving a hard slap on the back of his head he just scratched.
"Do you realize what you've done to me, your mother?" now she's yelling at him, just as expected. "Do you know how hard it is for me to face my school friends and not knowing what to tell them about my son?"
"Why bother, Mom?" he scowled lazily, defiantly taking every weakening hit his mother's hand repeatedly sends his back.
"Oh, why bother? Ha-ha, right," Seishirou could smell the alcohol from Setsuka's mouth, and he bends his back lower, away from Setsuka as she sit behind his back, "Why bother when all of them bragged about how their firstborn paid for their vacations abroad..." Seishirou shook his head, rolled his eyes up to heaven and looks up at the ceiling, groaning, "Or how their son bought them the recent-"
"But we've got more money than all of theirs combined, Mom. Please."
Setsuka shut her mouth, took in a deep breath and huffs it loud, "Now that's the problem, Kiddo; all of it's mine! Not yours, not your father's, those billions are still mine!"
Seishirou counts to three before he heard the expected sob. He put his legs on the floor and turns, watching Setsuka breaks down in exactly the way she broke down three days ago. "Oh, Seishirou... I just want you..."
Seishirou calmly takes Setsuka's blazer and fold it on his arm. He then silently rubs her fragile back. She was too young to be a mother, he let his maternal grandfather's words crosses his mind when he could feel some of her bones under the thin fabric of her white shirt. He waits as she cries out, "I just want you to be safe! Tokyo's a cruel city and you know that. It's not only envy, Seishirou, there're really plenty of people who would—God! You are my only son, Seishirou! What will happen if I die? Can't you please just wake up and do something?!"
Seishirou reached out to his mother once Setsuka's sobs turn into bouts of muted shaky breathes. He saw the way Setsuka's fragile body curled in his hug before he put his head on her left shoulder.
Both of them are finally at a loss of words.
"Don't worry, Mom. I'll try harder," he whispers and pats her right shoulder in a slow, comforting pattern but he let Setsuka to keep crying.
He took the sight of his father's faint smile on the frameless family portrait he and his mother had stick to the refrigerator not far from the living room he currently occupy, he keeps staring at the way the funny fridge magnet holds it infirmly. He remembered how they got that fridge magnet. He was only ten and his father, the commoner Tokyo born—once an unemployed, way too young of a father—taken his family out to Osaka to meet the man who hires him as a security guard at one of his real estates complex in Tokyo.
Why out of all jobs his father should choose security guard as his is still beyond him. Setsuka once said it was because Sanosuke doesn't want to take advantage of his wife's family, like some of her in-laws had been doing. But Seishirou could still remind himself how it really didn't matter after he saw his father's boss.
That man gave Seishirou a fridge magnet that has the form of a colourful okonomiyaki.
Seishirou forgot that man's given name but Mr. Sumeragi was nice. Pleasingly courteous even to the little spoiled Seishirou and he couldn't be more polite according to Setsuka. If memory didn't betray him, Mr. Sumeragi was not as tall as his father, with a slender built, prone to silly smiles and kind enough to spark up a dulling conversation. On the way from Tokyo to Osaka, Sanosuke has introduced Mr. Sumeragi as his childhood friend. He told his son that this boss slash friend of his originally a nobleman of Kyoto, but Mr. Sumeragi was raised in Osaka, thus his love for the city and okonomiyaki, the city' most loved street food.
It's just that Seishirou never expected that surreally fun and abrupt family trip to be the last time he'd ever see his father and Mr. Sumeragi. They died in front of the restaurant they've had lunch that day. Sanosuke in particular, died saving Seishirou and Setsuka from an uncontrollable SUV driven by a dying young woman. Sanosuke's friend was crushed first.
Now that Seishirou thinks about it; his father did told him something about the reason behind his affinity toward his job...
"I mean look at me, Seishirou. I am one of the only fourteen men trusted to guard this vast complex every single night. Don't you feel proud about that?"
I am proud of you, Father—I guess so.
"You don't have to worry about anything, Kiddo; I and your mother can guard you more than a thousand Gun dams!"
But what that made me, Father—just a spoiled child? What should I guard in this life to feel, to do anything at all?
"Your dreams," Seishirou snapped out his reverie right there, at his mother's words. Did he just say it all out loud?
"Guard your dreams, Kiddo," she continues just as sweetly, even when she notices Seishirou's arm stiffening on her shoulders. "That's what he said next, remember?" she yawns, "I'm sorry, just forget what I said, it's just me being drunk; your father and I love you no matter what."
Seishirou glances at his mother only to feel her body slackens from drowse. He let go of her but Setsuka dives further to sleep on his lap with an unfeigned smile on her pretty face. "I'm so sorry, Seishirou. I really am. Let's meet Papa in our dream."
"You're heavy, Mom."
"Oh, shut up."
"Seriously, Mom, I need to go to the bathroom."
"Okay, okay... but forgive me, will you?"
As much as he's glad that Setsuka is currently fast asleep in her own bedroom, Seishirou can't find a reason of why he is now tossing and turning around on his bed.
He had closed the windows, the curtains, and tried to also close his eyelids as his own mind told him to, but still he's just as wide awake as yesterday. In fact, it's been almost a week since Seishirou stops sleeping peacefully altogether. He no longer knows how.
Not that it's frightening. If anything, he's never a health freak. It's just that there's nothing he can do now except to sleep: He's not hungry, he hates TV, there's no more unread books left in this condominium, and there's no work hours waiting for him in the morning because all the time he spent learning at college to become a veterinarian went in vain once his maternal grandfather dies. His death brought forward a handwritten will stating Seishirou as his sole heir.
He grinned at the memories of how the chaos roaring from the rest of Sakurazuka family members facing his unflinchingly absolute indifference.
Being born a nobleman is never unlike having a foreordained destiny, why bother caring?